Subterranean City

Australian photographer Kate Seabrook fell in love with the Berlin subway and photographed every station on every line. Here, she gives us a guided tour of favorite stops: "Fehrbelliner Platz is one of the most interesting stations due to the contrast in styles between the U7 and U3 lines. The U7 platform is a wildly colored trademark Rainer G. Rümmler pop art design with a giant orange arrow."

"The more austere and grand U3 platform at Fehrberlliner Platz was designed by Wilhelm Leitgebel and has been restored to its original early 20th century style. The U3 platform also features a gallery of photographs by Heinrich Zille documenting life in the streets and tenements of Berlin at the beginning of the 20th Century."

"One of my top two favourite Berlin U-Bahn stations due to the lairy orange, yellow and brown seventies tiling thanks to architect Rainer G Rümmler, who designed most of the stations along this stretch of the U7 between Berliner Strasse and Rathaus Spandau. I get a lot of my home decorating inspiration from this station."

"Another favourite Rümmler due to the seventies brown tiling and use of the "Octopus" font designed by Colin Brignall in 1970, also used on a pressing of the Blondie record "The Tide is High." Like Siemensdamm and Hermannstrasse, this station on the U8 line was also designed as a fallout shelter, but is surely one of the more groovy fallout shelters you might come across."

"Designed by Swedish architect Alfred Grenander in 1906, this is one of Berlin's oldest stations. Given its central location in Berlin on the U2 line, I was also very surprised that it was one of the quietest stations I encountered on my underground odyssey. Although it was severely damaged in a fire in 2000, it has been preserved in the original Art Nouveau style."

"Although not the most architecturally exciting station on the U2 line, I included this one as I was very bemused to hear nothing more than the gentle bleating of a sheep while taking photos here. As a station that no doubt sees many tens of thousands of sports fans at certain times, the barnyard noises made it feel surprisingly bucolic. The blue benches and arches are a tribute to Hertha BSC."

"This U5 station was constructed in the GDR of 1989, shortly before the Wall fell. Much of the U5 line is above ground, and I foolishly decided to shoot it not only on one of the coldest Berlin winter days, but also on a weekend, so the ten minute wait between trains in the icy conditions felt like forever. I was cold and hungry and ate hot noodles on the platform before catching the next train."

"Also designed by Rümmler, the graphics on the walls and pipes in the ceiling are a nod to the nearby waterworks where many Berliners get their drinking water from."

"I shot the U3 line on the day after the coldest night in Berlin. Although the station architecture of Oskar-Helene-Heim is fairly plain, this photo really shows just how frozen and surreal everything can seem in a European winter, totally alien to someone who comes from such a hot country as Australia."

"Another colorful Rümmler creation, this station on the U7 line was named after a local Spandau publican Paul Stern. I love the explosion of bright mosaics on the walls and the stars on the ceiling."

"I was hoping to get a more interesting shot of Seestrasse on the U6, but I was approached by a pair of very nice young students who wanted to ask me questions for a survey on gentrification in the local neighbourhood of Wedding. So I answered them the best I could and then snapped this photo extremely quickly before I had to jump on the train to get to the next station."